BILLIARDS.

(Exercising Touch and Sight, and slightly illustrating the Impulse of Bodies.)

PLATE IV.

TABLE, INSTRUMENTS, AND MANNER OF USING THEM.

THIS game is played on a rectangular table with ivory balls.

The table is generally about twelve feet long and six wide. It is covered with fine green cloth, surrounded with a raised edge or border, two inches deep, and supporting internally a stuffed elastic pad, denominated the cushion; and it is furnished with six pockets, four of which are situated at the angles, and two midway in the length of the sides. The table has an upper and a lower part; across the upper part is drawn a straight line from one cushion to another, the space within which is called the baulk; and within the baulk is described a ring, or semicircle, of eleven inches radius, termed the striking

point. This baulk and the spot for the red ball are generally at about one fifth of the table. The player whose ball is in hand is confined to this space and must not place his ball beyond it.

Two, three, four, five, or six balls are employed, according to the particular game. Of these balls two are white; the others are distinguished from each other by appropriate colours; and of the white ones, a black spot is attached to one as a mark of distinction. One of these balls is allotted to each player, or to each party, and the coloured balls are considered neutral, or common to both.

As all Billiard balls are made of ivory, and as in every mass of that substance there are always some parts more solid than others, there is not a single ball perhaps which has the centre of gravity exactly in the centre of the figure. On this account, every ball deviates more or less from the line in which it is impelled, when as light motion is communicated to it, in order to make it proceed towards the other side of the billiard table, unless it should happen that the heaviest part is placed at the top or bottom. An eminent maker of these balls declares that he has never been able to find one ball perfectly free from the fault now described.

Hence it is that when a player strikes the ball gently, he often imagines that he has struck it, that is, played badly, while his want of success is entirely the consequence of this fault in the ball. A good billiard player, before he engages to play, ought carefully to try the ball, in order to discover the heaviest and lightest parts.

The instruments employed for the purpose of striking the balls are two; the cue, and the mace. The former of these is a long round stick, usually made of ash, and of conical shape, being an inch and a half in diameter at one end, and at the other about half an inch. The latter consists of a long slender rod, with a thick piece of mahogany or other wood affixed to its extremity, and adapted to it in such an angle, as to rest flat upon the table while the stick is held up to the shoulder in the act of striking: the under side of this is flat and smooth, in order that it may move with facility over the cloth; the upper is concave; and the end to be opposed to the ball is plain and broad.

Of these instruments, the cue is by far the most universally in use. It possesses various advantages over the mace, and is invariably preferred by good players. A description of the mode of using it follows: